Recyclable Carbon Nitride Composite Catalyst for Degradation of Tetracycline Under Natural Light in a Novel Iron-Free Photo-Fenton System

Abstract

Antibiotics are common organic pollutants in wastewater, and the issue of antibiotic contamination has always been a focus of research. Fenton oxidation technology has certain advantages in treating refractory organic compounds, but traditional Fenton technology is prone to secondary hazards such as iron ion leaching. Therefore, iron-free photo-Fenton technology becomes a breakthrough point. In this work, an iron-free photo-Fenton system with MoS2/TCNCl-S(P) as the core catalyst was established to achieve efficient degradation of antibiotics. By characterizing the morphology structure, crystal composition, and photoelectric properties of the catalysts, as well as using tetracycline (TC) as the target pollutant, we investigated the efficiency and stability of MoS2/TCNCl-S(P) in degrading TC in an iron-free photo-Fenton (IF-PF) system and conducted an in-depth exploration of its degradation mechanism. The experimental results demonstrate that the degradation efficiency of TC by the IF-PF (MoS2/TCNCl-S(P)) system under natural light can reach 80%, owing to the abundant generation of •O2- and •OH. This finding offers a promising research direction for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants in natural light conditions.

Keywords: Iron-free photo-Fenton, Functionalized carbon nitride spherical catalyst, Natural light, tetracycline degradation